Many attempts were hitherto made to improve color reproduction in a color reversal photographic light-sensitive material.
In order to attain higher chroma and higher fidelity color reproduction, as for color negative films, correction of unwanted (side) absorption of coloring materials are generally made by masking, in which so-called colored couplers are used. On the other hand, as for color reversal photographic light-sensitive materials, the above correction of unwanted absorption of coloring materials cannot be made by masking in which the colored couplers are used. Consequently, attempts to improve color reproduction mainly by the use of the interlayer effect (interimage effect) were made, as well as improvements in spectral sensitivity and spectral absorption characteristics of coloring materials.
The interlayer effect is described by W. T. Hanson Jr. et al. in "Journal of the Optical Society of America", Vol. 42, pp. 663-669.
Examples of described methods of enhancing the interlayer effect in a color reversal film are as follows: U.S. Pat. No. 4,082,553 discloses a reversal image-forming photographic element with a layer arrangement of two or more silver halide emulsion layers positioned to permit iodide ion migration among the emulsion layers upon development, in which a surface-fogged silver halide emulsion is added in a light-sensitive emulsion layer.
JP-B-1-60135 ("JP-B" means examined Japanese patent publication) describes a color reversal photographic light-sensitive material containing blue-, green-, and red-sensitive layers, in which each of these layers has sublayers of differing sensitivity, in which the ratio of the coating silver amount of a high-sensitivity layer, or both a high-sensitivity layer and a medium-sensitivity layer, to the amount of a low-sensitivity layer, is regulated, and in which the silver iodide content of a high-sensitivity layer, or both a high-sensitivity layer and a medium-sensitivity layer, to the content of a low-sensitivity layer, is regulated, thereby to improve the interlayer effect. Further, U.S. Pat. No. 5,262,287 describes a color reversal photographic light-sensitive material, wherein the whole light-sensitive silver halide grains in the photographic material have an average silver iodide content of 5.5 mol % or less, and wherein the said photographic material comprises means for expressing interlayer effects, the said interlayer effects at a color density of 0.5 and a color density of 1.5 satisfying a specific relationship.
However, these color reversal photographic light-sensitive materials are to generally improve the color chroma, centered on a pure color, such as red and green, but they are not intended to improve the reproduction of skin tones, which are a specific non-luminous object color.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,378,590 discloses a color reversal photographic element that contains an interlayer effect-controlling means, and that has the capacity of simultaneously reproducing a red color of high relative chroma and a yellow-tint red color (skin tones) of substantially low relative chroma.
However, this patent does not refer to the chroma relating to various skin tones, such as "a (fair) skin tone"and "a red-tint skin tone." On the contrary, the above-mentioned color reversal photographic element is not preferable for obtaining a skin tone image of high relative chroma, which is an object of the present invention.
Further, in the color reversal photographic element of the above-mentioned patent, only a relative chroma of yellowish red color (skin tone) is defined, but the hue of skin color is not referred to therein.